FREE ZOOM WORKSHOP EVENT:
All About the Massachusetts State Dinosaur Initiative
Science on State Street
Framingham State University / McAuliffe Center
Learn all about our new Massachusetts State Dinosaur – Podokesaurus holyokensis.
Tens of thousands of people across the state voted — and after legislation was filed in the House and the Senate last month, it’s only a short matter of time before we have our very own state dinosaur. In this workshop, Framingham State Rep. Jack Lewis and Barnas Monteith discuss Podokesaurus, our soon-to-be MA state dinosaur. The initiative will soon release educational outreach materials for children and adults to have some fun while learning about science and civic engagement. In our talk, we will share some of the latest dinosaur discoveries and how they relate to space science, ecosystems and climate change. An exciting event, 100 million years in the making, you won’t want to miss. A fun, family-friendly discussion, for children through adults.
Our initiative will be launching a dedicated website in the very near future, so please stay tuned for that! Sign up to learn more about the initiative and how to get on our brand new educational website on the bottom of this page.
April 21st, 2021
5:30-6:30 PM
FREE
Discussion by State Rep. Jack Lewis and State Dinosaur Initiative Task Force Member Barnas Monteith
This will be a fun, interactive discussion via Zoom, and for those who can not attend via Zoom, we will simulcast the event on our Youtube Channel, Live.
In addition, we are planning to unveil a new look and feel, as well as new FREE educational resources relating to dinosaurs that you can do at home — on our new website StateDino.org !
About the speakers:
State Rep. Jack Patrick Lewis is an American state legislator from Framingham, Massachusetts. A Democrat, he was sworn in as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives on January 4, 2017.
After earning the Democratic nomination on September 8, 2016, Lewis became representative-elect on November 8, earning over 61% of the vote.
In addition to his political involvement, Lewis has served as the executive director of OutMetro West, a nonprofit working with at-risk LGBT youth, and as assistant minister and director of religious education at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills. Jack was always interested in dinosaurs as a child, and even went on his own expedition in Australia. Lewis was the legislator behind the MA state dinosaur initiative; the initiative has received interest from CNN, Smithsonian Magazine and news media around the world. After 30,000+ votes, the announcement for our new state dino was announced at the Boston Museum of Science in Feb 2021.
Barnas Monteith – As a young student in Massachusetts, Barnas was, and has remained, one of the top record holding science fair participants in the country, with multiple international 1st place awards, for a project on dinosaur eggshells and evolution. He later went on to work at Harvard’s prestigious Museum of Comparative Zoology and led expeditions throughout the US, Canada and Asia. He was the youngest person to give a Plenary lecture at the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, the central organization for dinosaur paleontology in the world. His work included uncovering some of the earliest known eggs in history. His current work is doing outreach to students (including leading our Massachusetts state science fair for ~15 years) and his current active research is how to use AI to solve some of the world’s biggest problems — including in the field of paleontology!
Learn more about the speakers here: Jack and Barnas
More information about the Science on State Street event here:
To keep posted about our new state dinosaur website, and other events, free activities and educational resources, (and to make sure you are registered for the event) sign up here:
(We will send you an email confirmation right away, so please be sure to check your spam folder and add the address to your contacts to ensure that you can receive our mails – thank you!)
Please sign up below to ensure you reserve your spot. For those of you who have lost your reminder email, the Zoom link is:
https://zoom.us/j/99263035515?pwd=aE5FWGhFbU03azJxanJmcFF4K09uZz09
